The shaman’s transformation

Numerous visual expressions account for the pre-Columbian shamanic tradition and its specialists. Among the most notable is the one that shows the transformation that occurs to the shaman when in a trance he acquires for himself attributes of different beings of Nature and that of his extraordinary allies. This can be seen in the representations of human figures with animal and vegetable features, such as birds, felines, reptiles, plants and fungi. His allies, for their part, manifest themselves as other human or non-human beings that stand above the shaman’s physical body, called doubles or alter-ego.

Trichocereus Pachanoj (Jill Plugh and Steven F. White©, 2022).

(Foto, Rodrigo Tisi).

(Foto, Gonzalo Puga).

The shamanic
journey.
───
Accumulating
to concentrate
power.
───

The shamanic journey

Shamans modify their bodily identity to become their tutelary spirits or powerful animals such as felines, snakes and birds of prey, thus absorbing their behaviors and intrinsic qualities that will assist them in their shamanic flight. Travel as the preeminent shamanic activity encompasses the other components of shamanism: accumulation, transformation, ecstatic flight, receiving helpers and allies, and healing individuals and the community.

Accumulating to concentrate power

Accumulation is another characteristic of shamanic practice. The more attributes the shaman manages to acquire the more power he obtains. This cumulative behavior is observed, for example, in complex visual expressions or in the overcrowded ritual ‘tables’ of the contemporary shamans of northern Peru, with various objects of power, talismans, and remains of plants and animals, terrestrial and marine, reflecting an intimately connected image of the world and the structure of the cosmos.